Anne Ray Wins Tenth Annual Danahy Fiction Prize

Anne Ray of Brooklyn, New York, has been selected as winner of the tenth annual Danahy Fiction Prize by the editors of Tampa Review. She will receive a cash award of $1,000 and her winning short story, “Please Repeat My Name,” will be published in a forthcoming issue of Tampa Review.

       Ray grew up in suburban Maryland, graduated from the Creative Writing program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and completed an MFA in fiction at Brooklyn College. She has worked as a waitress, a gardener, an English teacher, and a fish monger. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, including Gettysburg Review, Opium, LIT, Conduit, Gulf Coast, and Cut Ban. She was the winner of the 2014 StoryQuarterly fiction prize. 

       She is also the author of the libretto for “Symposium,” a ten-minute opera written in collaboration with composer Oliver Caplan, which was performed by the Juventas New Music Ensemble in 2011 as part of a series on new opera. She was a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and works on the 18th floor of an office building in lower Manhattan.

       Ray’s Danahy Fiction Prize story takes place in a situation familiar to many who have been called for jury duty, with the central character, Audrey, moving through various stages of the jury selection process. 

       Ray explains that the story was partially inspired by her own experience with jury duty. “One dreary and wet winter, I was selected to be on a jury for an armed robbery trial,” Ray says. ”I was juror number eight. Once I had lived through jury duty I felt that I had arrived at a setting for a story.” 

       Audrey is a character who appears in several of Ray’s stories. The author describes her as “a person overtaken by loneliness, and yet with an almost inexplicably persistent wish for beauty and hope . . . secretly giggling at her own private happiness.”

       The Tampa Review editors who judged this year’s contest were especially impressed by the ways that Ray allowed the courtroom setting to introduce large and universal questions of values and judgment, while maintaining the close psychological focus on Audrey.

       “It was strange to me, while I was sitting on the jury, how such a common—and specifically American—experience was so isolating,” Ray says. “The world of my desk job disintegrated; I was there and nowhere else. Putting Audrey in such a setting, with its absurdity and flatness, brought me pain; giving her a moment of tenderness in that same place brought me joy.”

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       This year the judges also named seven finalists for the Danahy Prize: “Central City" by Leslee Becker of Fort Collins, Colorado; “Garden for Loss” by Jan Bowman of Columbia, Maryland; “Rhino Girl” by Taylor Brown of Wilmington, North Carolina; “Emissary” by Abby Lipscomb of Fincastle, Virginia; “Phosphorous and Other Toxins” by Claire Luchette of Eugene, Oregon; “Accidental Camouflage” by Anthony J. Viola of Huntington, West Virginia; and “White Is for Compliant,” Megan Wildhood of Seattle, Washington.

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       The Danahy Fiction Prize was established by Paul and Georgia Danahy as an annual award for a previously unpublished work of short fiction judged by the editors of Tampa Review, the faculty-edited literary journal of the University of Tampa, published twice yearly in a distinctive hardback format. Subscriptions are $22 annually, and those received before September will include the issue featuring Ray’s prize-winning story.

     The Danahy Fiction Prize is open to both new and widely published writers, with an annual postmark deadline of December 31. The $20 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Tampa Review, and all entries submitted are considered for publication.

Complete guidelines are available on the Web at http://tampareview.ut.edu or by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to The Danahy Fiction Prize, University of Tampa Press, 401 West Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33606.

Poet Bruce Bond Wins 2014 Tampa Review Prize

Bruce Bond, of Denton, Texas, has been named winner of the 2014 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. Bond receives the thirteenth annual prize for his new manuscript, Black Anthem. In addition to a $2,000 check, the award includes hardback and paperback book publication in 2015 by the University of Tampa Press. 

Bond is the author of nine published books of poetry, most recently Choir of the Wells: A Tetralogy (Etruscan, 2013), The Visible (LSU, 2012), Peal (Etruscan, 2009), and Blind Rain (LSU, 2008).  In addition he has four books forthcoming: The Other Sky (poems in collaboration with the painter Aron Wiesenfeld, intro by Stephen Dunn; Etruscan Press), For the Lost Cathedral (LSU Press), Immanent Distance: Poetry and the Metaphysics of the Near at Hand (University of Michigan), and Metaphysics of the Literal Heart (Four Way Books). 

Tampa Review judges commented that the poems in Black Anthem  left them “amazed and in awe of his poetic range and dexterity that revitalizes the sonnet form.”

“This is a manuscript that surprised us at every turn,” the judges said. “Bond plays the sonnet form like a master musician, making an old form continously new and fresh on page after page.”

“His eye and ear for language are remarkable‚” the judges added. ”Just as you think you've understood how rhymes, rhythms, themes, and sequences are working, Bond throws in another improvisation or flourish that deepens the poetic experience. You know to expect the volta, but have no idea where the turn will take you. His lyricism makes you want to go along for the ride.”

Bond’s background includes significant accomplishments as a classical and jazz guitarist, which may in part account for the musicality of language in this collection. In addition to his Ph.D. in English from the University of Denver, he also holds a Masters in Musical Performance from the Lamont School of Music and has worked as a professional guitarist.

Bond has previously received numerous recognitions for his poems, including the Allen Tate Award, the TIL Best Book of Poetry Prize, the Colladay Award, the Richard Peterson Prize, the Knightsville Poetry Award, and fellowships from the NEA and the Texas Institute for the Arts.  Presently he is a Regents Professor of English at the University of North Texas and Poetry Editor for American Literary Review.

 A sampling of poems from Black Anthem will appear as a “sneak preview” in a forthcoming issue of Tampa Review, the award-winning hardback literary journal published by the University of Tampa Press. Bond’s book will be released in the fall of 2015.

The judges also announced ten finalists this year: 

Brian Brodeur of Cincinnati, Ohio,  for “Persons of Interest”;

Polly Buckingham of Medical Lake, Washington, for “A Day Like This”;

Mark Cox of Wilmington, North Carolina, for “No Picnic in the Afterlife”; 

Tom Hansen of Custer, South Dakota, for “Body of Water, Body of Fire”; 

Judy Jordan of Anna, Illinois, for “Children of Salt”; 

Tim Mayo of Brattleboro, Vermont, for “The Body’s Pain”;

Robert McNally of Concord, California, for “Simply to Know Its Name”; 

Joel Peckham of Huntington, West Virginia, for “Body Memory”;

Brittney Scott of Richmond, Virginia, for “The Derelict Daughter”; and

Carol Westberg of Hanover, New Hampshire, for “Terra Infirma.”

The Tampa Review Prize for Poetry is given annually for a previously unpublished booklength manuscript. Judging is by the editors of Tampa Review, who are members of the faculty at the University of Tampa. Submissions are now being accepted for 2015. Entries must follow published guidelines and must be postmarked by December 31, 2014.

Complete guidelines are available at www.ut.edu/tampareview or by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope to The Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, University of Tampa Press, 401 West Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33606.